Court denies 6waves’ petition to dismiss Spry Fox lawsuit

Gamasutra reports 6waves’ petition to dismiss the lawsuit brought against it by developer Spry Fox has been denied by a U.S. court, stating Spry Fox plausibly identified enough copying in their suit to file for relief.

Spry Fox filed the original lawsuit against 6waves in January over the iOS game Yeti Town, a clone of the former’s popular game Triple Town. In the suit, Spry Fox said it was seeking $100,000 in damages and any profits 6waves had received from Yeti Town (for an amount no less than $500,000). On its blog, Spry Fox explained that it was in publishing negotiations with 6waves over Triple Town, which gave the latter access to the game’s private beta months before it was released on iOS and that there were non-disclosure agreements in place.

When we talked to 6waves CEO Rex Ng in April, he told us his company had moved to have the case dismissed but declined to go into any detail. The court clearly disagreed, since the new filing says Triple Town and Yeti Town are undeniably similar and, “those similarities pervade the games, from their underlying concepts to their rules to the visual appearance of their characters and backgrounds.”

While the court’s filing mentions the similarities between the two games, it also notes there are differences between them but Spry Fox’s allegations satisfy both intrinsic and extrinsic tests.

The dismissal of 6waves’ petition comes at a particularly inopportune time for the developer, which was already having a rough week. Six days ago, the developer laid off six full-time staffers from its U.S. office, reducing its North American team to only seven full-time employees.

We’ve reached out to both Spry Fox and 6waves for statements, but have yet to receive responses.

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